“Little Qin, do you know what’s popular in Southern Capital recently… well, what songs everyone loves to sing? You sing and I’ll dance.” Ye Kong wanted to find a piece of music that could bring Shadow Dance to its ultimate potential.

Lu Qin thought for a long time before saying, “How about I sing Little Cabbage for you?”

Ye Kong nearly fainted. “Little Cabbage was something I taught you. I want you to sing songs from your Cangnan Continent.”

The Cangnan Continent’s entertainment activities were impoverished to the extreme. Those songs and dances simply weren’t something ordinary people could enjoy. Lu Qin was so anxious she was about to cry. Finally, she could only say, “How about I sing a washing song? I heard women at the well singing it while washing clothes.”

“Clothing, clothing,

Little sister busily washing,

Big brother travels far and wide,

When he comes home, sister mends his pants.”

“When he comes home, sister mends his pants?” Ye Kong nearly fainted. “What kind of washing song is this? A vulgar folk ditty, not suitable for children. What kind of people are doing this washing?”

“I really don’t have any other songs to sing. Everything I know, you taught me.”

Ye Kong could only shake his head helplessly. This Cangnan Continent was truly tragic. A poor fourteen-year-old girl couldn’t even sing a single song.

While they were talking, the “shua-cha, shua-cha” sound of sharpening scissors came from over there, interrupting Ye Kong’s train of thought. Originally, he wanted to hum a tune in his mind but couldn’t hum anything anymore.

“Forget it, Little Qin. I’ll teach you how to draw talismans.” Ye Kong was just about to go back inside with Lu Qin.

But his heart suddenly stirred. He stopped in his tracks and actually began dancing gracefully to the sound of the knife sharpening.

“I understand! It’s rhythm! What determines Shadow Dance movements is rhythm! Different rhythms have different dances. The same Shadow Dance, following different rhythms, also has countless variations. Shadow Dance isn’t about being powerful or not powerful, only whether or not it matches the current rhythm!”

From Chen Jiuniang’s accidental scissor-sharpening sounds, [stolen content]Ye Kong actually comprehended Shadow Dance’s internal principles. In that moment of great enlightenment, he even clearly felt subtle changes occurring in his qi sea.

About to break through!

“Mother, Little Qin, I’m going back to my room. Don’t call me for anything, no matter how important!” Ye Kong quickly rushed back to his room, bolted the door, hurriedly sat cross-legged on the bed, regulated his breathing, and meditated, guiding spiritual energy to circulate through his limbs and bones.

Actually, immortal cultivation was the process of comprehending the Dao. Generally speaking, everyone relied on absorbing spiritual energy. When spiritual energy reached a certain quantity, quantitative change became qualitative change, elevating their level.

What Ye Kong experienced today was called sudden enlightenment. Through sudden understanding of the heavenly Dao and elevation of his mental state, he drove his spiritual energy to qualitative change.

This Five Elements Ascension Scripture cultivated extraordinarily slowly. If not for his sudden enlightenment, he absolutely couldn’t have entered Qi Refinement Layer 2 in just two years.

Not knowing how much time passed, Ye Kong finally awakened from his meditation state. From Qi Refinement Layer 1 to Qi Refinement Layer 2 required an enormous amount of spiritual energy, so this meditation session was his longest ever. A full five days. He felt the expansion of his qi sea and also felt that his speed of absorbing and refining spiritual energy had become faster.

“Two years, Qi Refinement Layer 2. I wonder if this speed is fast or slow?” Ye Kong opened his eyes and discovered it was midnight again. Moonlight scattered its clear radiance through the torn window lattice onto the tabletop.

“Mother must be anxiously waiting.” Ye Kong hurriedly got off the bed, opened the door, and quickly walked to the adjacent room.

Chen Jiuniang was sleeping propped up at the bedside. She hadn’t even taken off her shoes. A small oil lamp had burned to the edge of exhaustion, only a mung bean-sized flame struggling on.

“Sigh, you could sleep comfortably instead. What’s there for you to worry about?” Ye Kong’s heart ached. He guessed Chen Jiuniang had probably slept like this for all five days.

He suddenly realized why those cultivators all went to deep mountains and old forests to go into closed-door cultivation. First, to avoid people disturbing them. Second, to avoid this kind of baseless worry.

In the future, his cultivation meditation times would be even longer. How could he make his mother not worry? But if he wanted to leave home, who would take care of her?

“The heavenly Dao is heartless. No wonder they say that. From the very beginning of cultivation, one must sever all emotional attachments. Only then can the mind be undistracted.” Although Ye Kong thought this way, he’d rather cultivate slower than abandon his mother.

He gently helped Chen Jiuniang take off her shoes, laid her down, covered her with a blanket, then blew out the lamp, grabbed a few dry steamed buns, and returned to his own room.

“Let cultivation be slow then.” Ye Kong gnawed on a steamed bun in a daze.

Although he’d rather have slow cultivation speed, the realistic problems still lay before him. First, Southern Capital City’s spiritual energy was too thin. Why were all those immortal cultivation sects in famous mountains and great rivers? ​visit our site​Because there were spirit veins there with abundant spiritual energy. The quantity and activity level of spiritual energy was closely related to cultivation speed. Currently at Qi Refinement Layer 2, Southern Capital City could barely suffice, but if he later reached Qi Refinement Layer 3 or 4, leaving home would be unavoidable.

Another problem was that he couldn’t be disturbed during meditation. That’s why those cultivators liked finding uninhabited mountain caves for closed-door cultivation. During breakthroughs, some even needed people to guard them.

The way Ye Kong cultivated was very dangerous. Especially when breaking through, his body was most fragile. During these five days, if someone had disturbed him, at best the breakthrough would fail. At worst, he’d suffer spiritual energy backlash and injury. The higher one’s cultivation, the more severe the injury.

“It seems sooner or later, I’ll have to leave here.” Ye Kong let out a long breath, then shook his head.

He was unwilling to leave Chen Jiuniang, but in the future, he’d inevitably have to leave. Although he’d decided to support the Lu brothers in Southern Capital City to gain some influence and have them look after his mother, after he left, his mother’s heart would surely be very lonely.

“Actually, Little Qin accompanying Mother is quite good.” Ye Kong spoke to himself again. He wasn’t some green youngster anymore. On Earth, he’d had rich experience chasing girls, so he clearly knew Lu Qin’s feelings for him.

But he also felt he was too selfish. If he married Lu Qin and then left in the future, his mother would have someone with her, but wouldn’t Lu Qin be left as a grass widow?

Perhaps these problems weren’t problems at all for people of the Cangnan Continent. Just live comfortably yourself. Who cares whether others are happy or not?

“After all, I’m not a person of the Cangnan Continent.” After finishing stolen contentthe steamed bun, Ye Kong sighed once and stopped getting entangled in these trivial matters.

He sat cross-legged back on the bed. Having successfully broken through to Qi Refinement Layer 2, would the Complete Collection of Talismans open a brand-new page?

His heart was somewhat excited and somewhat nervous. At Qi Refinement Layer 1, he’d already opened all the paper talismans. If he could open more now, he’d be able to see spirit talismans.

Spirit talismans were the most effective weapons on the Cangnan Continent. Ye Kong still didn’t know a single spell. If he had spirit talismans in hand, that wouldn’t be a problem at all.

Before long, a cheer transmitted from Ye Kong’s heart. “It opened! Spirit talismans! Lower low-grade spirit talismans!”

“From now on, I won’t fear anyone!” Looking at the first three spirit talisman designs that came into view, a surge of excitement welled up from the bottom of his heart. Ye Kong could almost barely restrain himself from laughing out loud.

“Fireball Curse, fire attribute lower low-grade spirit talisman, can emit a fist-sized fireball with lasting flames…”

“Earth Spike Curse, earth attribute lower low-grade spirit talisman, can thrust out a sharp spear from the ground with tremendous power, impossible to guard against…”

“Golden Light Talisman, metal attribute lower low-grade spirit talisman, used for defense. After use, entire body emits golden light, impervious to blades and spears. Same-level talisman ​Read on Jormuntl​spells cannot break it. Duration determined by the caster’s magical power…”

“Screw his immortal ancestors! Too awesome!”

However, Ye Kong’s happiness didn’t last long before he discovered these spirit talismans weren’t so easy to make.

“So-called spirit talismans are talismans written with spiritual energy. Based on spiritual energy content, they’re divided into lower grade, middle grade, upper grade, and supreme grade. Each grade can be further subdivided into low-rank, middle-rank, and high-rank.”

“Spirit talismans, classified by effect: offensive types are mostly called curses. When used with talisman script combined with incantations, power is fixed, unrelated to the caster’s spiritual power strength.”

“Defensive types are called talismans. When used with talisman script combined with incantations and hand gestures, defensive effect is fixed, but sustainable duration has some relationship with the user’s spiritual power magnitude.”

“Auxiliary types mainly consist of various escape talismans and power/speed enhancement talismans. Special types…”

“Spirit talisman creation must be matched with corresponding talisman paper. Lower low-grade spirit talismans also require lower low-grade talisman paper. High-grade talisman paper can create low-grade spirit talismans, but conversely, talisman paper cannot withstand the corresponding spiritual power and is difficult to form into talismans.”

“To create lower low-grade spirit talismans, take one piece of corresponding talisman paper, unfold it, use a spirit-communicating talisman brush dipped in lower low-grade spirit herb juice (or same-level spirit beast blood), and using the attribute of the spirit talisman being made, release corresponding attribute Read on Jormuntl spiritual energy. Drive the brush with spiritual energy, draw according to the diagram, and it can be completed. When creating talismans, one must have no stray thoughts, complete it in one breath, spiritual energy infusion must be stable and uniform…”

Ye Kong couldn’t read any further.

So these spirit talismans’ paper, brush, and ink were all extraordinary items. But where would he find lower low-grade talisman paper? And spirit-communicating talisman brushes, lower low-grade spirit beast blood…

Good heavens! Last time Liu Changqing hunted an injured Ironhide Barbarian Bull and suffered heavy losses. That was still a gradeless spirit beast. If he went to kill a lower low-grade spirit beast, that would be almost no different from suicide.

“Looks like I temporarily can’t make spirit talismans. Later when I learn about cultivators’ markets, I can buy these talisman-making materials.” Ye Kong’s just-heated heart cooled down again.

However, since he temporarily couldn’t make spirit talismans, familiarizing himself with spirit talisman designs first was good too. This would be very beneficial for future talisman-making success rates.

When Ye Kong looked at the current three types of spirit talisman designs, he couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement. The drawing method for these spirit talismans was completely different from paper talismans, and their structure was also completely different.

Paper talisman structure consisted of talisman head, talisman core, and talisman foot, with emphasis on the talisman core. The content mainly consisted of graphics and celestial script similar to Chinese characters.

But spirit talismans were completely different. They didn’t have upper, middle, and lower structure. They were just squares, complex squares connected by countless strokes and lines. One couldn’t make out what graphics were inside at all, and they had no relationship with writing either. To put it more vividly, they were no different from square integrated circuit boards.

Ye Kong felt the circuit board analogy was quite accurate. Some strokes were open circuits, some strokes were closed circuits, extremely complex and intricate. Spiritual energy flowed through them like electric current. When operating, they would inevitably produce powerfully effective results.

It seemed these spirit talismans couldn’t be casually modified. They contained profound and difficult-to-fathom patterns. The creators of spirit talismans definitely weren’t from the Cangnan Continent, nor from Earth. This was a civilization containing both science and mysterious energy, its civilization level far surpassing both Earth and the Cangnan Continent.